Miami-Dade Transit - New Metrorail Trains in service/Ribbon Cutting

Target Audience: Our target audience - the community.

Strategy Objective:The new Metrorail fleet will become an integral part of the community; therefore, we wanted to have our ribbon cutting event to feature more than just the traditional podium and set of speakers. We wanted the community to be a part of the event, so we partnered with local artists and musicians to perform at the event. We heavily promoted the ribbon cutting on our social media channels, including creating a Snapchat filter for the event day. An exclusive sneak peek was granted to the Miami Herald newspaper to help create additional buzz. The inaugural trip began at the Airport Metrorail station and stopped at each station until we arrived at Government Center, our most popular station. Here, we stopped the train and provided a photo op for the media and our riders.

Situation Challenge: Built in 1984, Miami-Dade County's Metrorail system is a 25-mile dual track, elevated rapid transit system used by more than 65,000 passengers daily. Advances in technology have come a long way since the 1980's, and many of our riders take to social media to comment on the fact that our fleet was not up to where it should ' and could ' be. Our passengers were unhappy with the state of the legacy fleet. Even though we began assembling and testing our new Metrorail cars in 2016, riders were skeptical we were ever getting new trains and going so far as to commenting "fake" whenever we shared updates that featured an image or video of a new railcar. As the day approached for our first all-new Metrorail car to be placed into revenue service, we knew we had to do something spectacular.

Results Impact: Over 250 guests were charmed with music and performances on the station platform. Media coverage transcended the local stations with both national and international coverage. The sneak peek with the Herald paid off -- we had a positive article written about the new trains. A shared post of the event on Facebook had over 21,000 views, and a post during the event had reached over 4,000 unique accounts. The photo of the new train at the event that was posted to Instagram reached over 1,000 unique accounts and our video had over 1,000 views. In addition, the Snapchat geo-filter was seen 335 times. It was clear to us that our riders loved the event and enjoyed the ride on the new train.

Why Submit: The ribbon cutting ceremony introduced the new trains to our community and produced goodwill among our riders. Those that attended the event felt that they were a part of history ' for the first time in over 30 years, a new Metrorail car was placed on our tracks and those who were at the ribbon cutting ceremony were the first to ever take a ride on it. Attendees used social media to spread the word that the trains were bright, airy, and clean. The event certainly helped to reshape the sentiment from our riders into a more positive one.